The Influence of the Consumer Ethnocentrism and Cultural

ORIGINAL RESEARCH published: 04 July 2019 doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2019.00220

The Inﬂuence of the Consumer Ethnocentrism and Cultural Familiarity on Brand Preference: Evidence of Event-Related Potential (ERP)

Qingguo Ma 1,2,3*, H’meidatt Mohamed Abdeljelil 1 and Linfeng Hu 2,4

1School of Management, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, 2Institute of Neural Management Sciences, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, China, 3Academy of Neuroeconomics and Neuromanagement, Ningbo University, Ningbo, China, 4School of Management, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, China

The tendency of customers’ preference to their local brands over the foreign ones is known as consumer ethnocentrism, and it is an important issue in international marketing. This study aims at identifying the behavioral and neural correlates of Consumer Ethnocentrism in the ﬁeld of brand preference, using event-related potential (ERP). We sampled subjects from two ethnic groups, a Chinese ethnic group and a sub-Saharan Black African group from Zhejiang University. The subjects faced two sequential stimuli, S1 followed by S2. S1 consisted of 40 pictures of 20 Chinese and 20 Black Africans people wearing traditional clothes, and S2 consisted of 40 fake brand-logos which were divided randomly into two groups of 20 each. The subjects were informed that the people in S1 purchased and recommended the products with the brand-logos presented in S2, and the subjects were asked to rate their preference degree toward these logos. The brand-logos were called the “in-group recommended Edited by: logos” if the recommenders in S1 were the same race as the subjects, otherwise, the Peter Lewinski, University of Oxford, United Kingdom “out-group recommended logos.” The results revealed that the race of the brand-logo

Reviewed by: recommender highly impacted the Chinese subjects’ preference for the brand-logos. Chunliang Feng, The N200 component elicited by the in-group recommended logos were signiﬁcantly Beijing Normal University, China lower than those elicited by the out-group recommended logos. Additionally, there was Vincenzo Russo, Università IULM, Italy evidence that being familiar with foreign cultures reduced consumer ethnocentrism. The

*Correspondence: African subjects were familiar with Chinese people and adopted a Chinese culture, as Qingguo Ma a result, they did not differ in showing preferences between the in-group and out-group [email protected] recommended logos.

Received: 29 November 2018 Keywords: event-related potential, N200, consumer ethnocentrism, preference, neuromarketing, Accepted: 17 June 2019 neuromanagement, branding, purchase intention Published: 04 July 2019

Citation: Ma Q, Abdeljelil HM and Hu L INTRODUCTION (2019) The Inﬂuence of the Consumer Ethnocentrism and Cultural Familiarity on Brand Preference: Evidence of Consumer’s tendency to buy a locally made good over a foreign product is known as consumer Event-Related Potential (ERP). ethnocentrism (de Ruyter et al., 1998; Moon and Jain, 2002; Rand et al., 2009; Jiménez and Front. Hum. Neurosci. 13:220. San Martín, 2010). This conceptual phenomenon leads to making purchasing decisions that doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2019.00220 do not only depend on price-quality but also depend on the criterion of where the product

Frontiers in Human Neuroscience| www.frontiersin.org 1 July 2019 | Volume 13 | Article 220 Ma et al. Neural Response to Consumer Ethnocentrism comes from (Garmatjuk and Parts, 2015). Ethnocentrism is between familiar and unfamiliar faces (Jemel et al., 2003; Tanaka originally a sociological concept, and it shows the relationship et al., 2006). However, some previous studies suggested that between a group to which an individual belongs (in-group) and the N250 elicited by familiar faces was connected solely to one the group that the individual does not belong to (out-group; semantic process which was related to familiar face identification de Ruyter et al., 1998). A group is not limited to a social or (Bentin and Deouell, 2000), while during the interaction of racial segregation but could also be any other organization that familiarity and facial expression processing the familiar faces an individual feels apart of, such as gender, ethnicity, religion, elicited a shorter P300 latency than the unfamiliar faces musical preferences, dressing styles (Hornstein, 1972; Fershtman (Wild-Wall et al., 2008). and Gneezy, 2001; Platow and van Knippenberg, 2001; Levine Related studies using neuroscience to investigate consumer et al., 2005; Stürmer et al., 2006; He et al., 2009; Rand et al., 2009), ethnocentrism are scarce. Until now, most scholars have used and it is a process which starts from childhood to adulthood a consumer ethnocentrism tendencies scale approach, which is (Ben-Ner et al., 2009). Individuals from a cultural collectivism composed of 17 items, to study consumer ethnocentrism (Shimp like the Chinese and Africans often see their role as individuals and Sharma, 1987). Although the concept of ethnocentrism refers in relation to the family or society that they identify themselves to the preference of in-group over out-group products regardless with and, therefore, support in-group members (Chen et al., of the group category (nation, ethnicity, etc.), in practice the 2002; Hustinx and Lammertyn, 2003; Kemmelmeier et al., 2006; majority of consumer ethnocentrism research focuses mainly Pierre and Matondo, 2012). on the nation-state group. For example, in different countries, In the current study, the priming stimuli consisted of two consumers driven by patriotism tend to prefer local products ethnic group pictures, Black African and Asian Chinese people. over imported ones (Shimp and Sharma, 1987; Vida et al., 2008; Generally, during race facial differentiation the subjects have Wise, 2017). Only a few studies used the category group, other some difficulty in identifying the other races’ face, which than a nation-state, such as Vida et al.(2008) who distinguished is known as other race effects (Sporer, 2001; Hugenberg between the in-group and out-group based on the culture- et al., 2007). Some previous research that studied faces of ethnic groupings. Moreover, consumer ethnocentrism could be an in-group and out-group race concluded that three event- driven by other factors than patriotism. These other factors related potential (ERP) components could be distinguished could include perceived vulnerability to a threat (Wise, 2017), between in-group and out-group race faces, comprising the brand and product category (Balabanis and Siamagka, 2017) early negative component which reflects the face processing and cultural identity (He and Lu, 2015). The theory of planned and peaking around 170 ms after the stimulus (N170), the behavior (TPB) is frequently used to predict the purchase negative wave recorded between 200 and 350 ms after the intention and brand preference, which claims that attitude, stimulus (N200), and the late positives potential appearing subjective norms and the ability to do any specific behavior, around 300 ms after the stimulus (P300; Dickter and Bartholow, determines the behavior intention (Ajzen, 1991). Typically, 2007; Walker et al., 2008). Furthermore, the ERP components subjective norms are divided into two parts, the descriptive P200 and the N200 were linked with early attention processes norm, and the conjunctive norm. Descriptive norm refers to while the P300 was associated with the evaluative categorization an individual doing what the others do, i.e., the individual processes (Ito et al., 1998; Dickter and Bartholow, 2007; Walker adopts the others’ opinions and behaviors (Stok et al., 2014). et al., 2008). During the categorization of the in-group and Conjunctive norms are defined as what an individual should out-group faces, the existing results showed that the own race do, is determined by acceptable and unacceptable social group faces elicited larger N200 at the frontal area while the other behavior (Stok et al., 2014). Although the original TPB did not race faces elicited larger P200 and P300 at the parietal region distinguish between the two types of norms, the descriptive norm (Dickter and Bartholow, 2007). Another experiment which used was nonetheless often used to predict the behavioral intentions an in-group face, an out-group face and a non-face as stimuli (Borsari and Carey, 2003). The term social conformity was used found that N170 distinguished the face stimuli from the non-face widely by neuroscience scholars to describe the effect of the stimuli, and the N250 elicited by the in-group faces was larger group opinion on individual behavior (Stallen and Sanfey, 2015). than that of the out-group faces (Ito et al., 2004). In addition, However, EEG studies found that the conformity related to the the same study revealed that only in the people with higher brain activities correlated to the two brain areas, the striatum levels of prejudice the late-positive potential (LPP) peaking and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (Bartra et al., 2013; Stallen at partial electrode differentiated between the in-group and and Sanfey, 2015). On the other hand, several studies have linked out-group faces (Ito et al., 2004). However, the familiarity and EEG frontal asymmetries to consumer choice prediction and contact with the other culture-ethnic group could reduce all purchase intention (Ambler et al., 2004; Vecchiato et al., 2011). racial bias aspects (Malinowska, 2016). Previous researchers, Besides, ERP components were associated with categorizing for example, found that cultural familiarity and contact with and evaluating stimuli, P300 (Polich, 2007) and N200 (Folstein other ethnicities reduced the racial bias in empathy (Xu et al., and Van Petten, 2008) and most recently P200 and LPP 2009; Zuo and Han, 2013). Moreover, after the training which (Ma et al., 2018). Furthermore, ERP component N200 and aimed at increasing the level of familiarity with the other group a weaker theta band was associated to purchase intention race face, the amplitude of N250 for the other race group face (Telpaz et al., 2015). was larger than before (Tanaka and Pierce, 2009). Meanwhile, Cultural familiarity is a large topic which entails several the existing studies found that N170 could not differentiate dimensions (e.g., experience; Carneiro and Crompton, 2010).

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Commonly, the number of previous visits to a destination than the A-logo. In the African subjects, the familiarity with the was used as criteria to distinguish between the familiar and Chinese culture and people reduced the racial bias in S1, thus unfamiliar groups (Carneiro and Crompton, 2010; Prats et al., no difference in preference was expected between the A-logo 2016). A tourist’s previous visits and experiences influence and C-logo. the positivity of their satisfaction about the destination (Prats et al., 2016; Trianasari et al., 2018). Moreover, a tourist’s MATERIALS AND METHODS familiarity has a positive impact on the image of the local products of the destination and induces a higher intention Participants for consuming local products such as food (Seo et al., Twenty international male students who have lived in China 2013). Furthermore, cultural sensitivity also positively and for more than 1 year and identify themselves as being of Black directly impacts the image of the destination and the visitors’ ethnicity with sub-Saharan origin were engaged in the group satisfaction (Palacio and Martín-Santana, 2018). The cultural of Black African subjects (age range = 19–37 years, M = 25.95, sensitivity measures the cultural openness, which refers to SD = 6.41), and 20 Asian Chinese males (age range = 20–32 years, the willingness to communicate with people from different M = 26.3, SD = 3.12) who identify themselves as being of Asian culture-ethnic groups and to experience their related objects ethnicity and who have not traveled outside of China were (Sharma et al., 1995; Shankarmahesh, 2006; Mahon and Cushner, enlisted to denote the Asian Chinese subjects in this study. The 2014). To the best of our knowledge, none of the consumer independent sample t-test revealed no significant difference of ethnocentrism scholars have explored the relationship between age between the two subject groups, t(38) = −0.157; p = 0.876. consumer ethnocentrism and cultural familiarity, while several Both Chinese and African subjects were students at Zhejiang studies have investigated the relationship between cultural University. The experiment was conducted at the Neuro- sensitivity and consumer ethnocentrism (Sharma et al., 1995; management lab, Zhejiang University. All subjects had normal Nguyen et al., 2008; Wang, 2018). Consumers with a high or corrected to normal vision with no history of neurological degree of cultural sensitivity are more positive and feel less or psychiatric abnormalities. This study was approved by the threatened by the other culture-ethnic groups and consequently, Neuromanagement Laboratory Ethics Committee at Zhejiang such consumers prefer more of the imported products than University. Written informed consent was obtained from all the consumers with a lower degree of cultural sensitivity participants before the ERP experiment. (Wang, 2018). In this experiment, we sampled subjects from two groups Stimuli consisting of Asian Chinese people who had never been outside In the current study, the priming stimuli (S1) consisted of of China and Black people of sub-Saharan African origin 40 pictures of 20 Asian Chinese and 20 Black Africans (equal who have been international students in China for more than number of males and females) with neutral facial expressions and 1 year, respectively. In order to understand the effect of the wearing corresponding traditional clothes, which were chosen cultural familiarity on consumer ethnocentrism based on ethnic- randomly from the Internet. All the people in the pictures stood culture groupings and driven by descriptive norms, we applied up, simply extended their hands without a hand gesture, and an ERP experiment with the S1–S2 paradigm. S1 presented had the same posture. The subjects were not familiar with race pictures of the two races with neutral facial expressions and pictures and did not include celebrity pictures. These pictures wearing ethnically corresponding traditional clothes. The two were processed to have the same size and background using race groups’ pictures were then followed by S2, fake brand Adobe Photoshop 13.0.S2, consisted of 40 fake earphone logo logos (S2) which were randomly divided into two groups, one pictures used in our previous study (Ma et al., 2017) and corresponding to Chinese people’s pictures (referred to as C- were divided randomly into two groups of 20 each, following logo), and the others corresponded to the African people’s Chinese pictures and African pictures, respectively, in the pictures (A-logo). The subjects were informed that the people ERP experiment. in S1 had bought the earphones and therefore recommended To test the stimuli, all subjects were asked to rate for the brand-logo in S2 to them. The subjects were then asked to the attractiveness of the race stimuli (S1) and preference indicate their preferences for the logos. The logos were called of the logo stimuli (S2) on a 5-point scale (1 = very low the ‘‘in-group recommended logos’’ if the recommenders in to 5 = very high), after the ERP experiment section. The S1 were the same race as the subjects, otherwise, the ‘‘out-group differences between the Chinese Race Picture and African recommended logos.’’ Race Picture in attractiveness were rated by each subject Based on the above introduction, we hypothesized that group. And a significant difference was found in the Chinese cultural familiarity would modulate consumer ethnocentrism subject group (MChinese-Picture = 3.785, SDChinese-Picture = 0.446; driven by descriptive norms, i.e., the impact of the MAfrican-Picture = 2.23, SDAfrican-Picture = 0.345; t(19) = 17.162, recommendation of the race picture in S1 on the brand-logo in p = 0.000), while in African subject group there was no significant S2 was determined by the cultural familiarity of Chinese and difference (MChinese-Picture = 3.210, SDChinese-Picture = 0.65; African subjects. In Chinese subjects, the unfamiliarity to the MAfrican-Picture = 3.265, SDAfrican-Picture = 0.589; t(19) = −0.704, African culture and people was expected to lead them to be P = 0.49). In addition, The two groups of logos, i.e., C-logos more bias toward the Chinese than the African recommender and A-logos, were tested without priming stimuli in Chinese in S1, which made the Chinese subjects prefer the C-logo more subjects in the previous ERP study, and no difference between

Frontiers in Human Neuroscience| www.frontiersin.org 3 July 2019 | Volume 13 | Article 220 Ma et al. Neural Response to Consumer Ethnocentrism the two logo groups was found (Ma et al., 2017). Thus we just them, and their task was to rank the logo in S2 from 1 asked the African subjects to rate the two groups of logos without (dislike a lot) to 5 (like a lot) using the mini keypad. After priming stimuli, the paired sample t-test revealed that there was the rating, a 1,000 ms blank was presented at the end of no difference in the preferences between the A-logos and C-logos each trial. (M = 2.798, SD = 0.33) and C-logos (M = 2.93, SD = 0.304), In total 80 trials were randomly presented to each subject in t(19) = −1.146, p = 0.266. this experiment, i.e., 40 Race Pictures in S1 (20 Asian Chinese The subjects’ familiarity was measured by their previous visits pictures, 20 Black African pictures) and then 40 logos in S2 (20 to a destination according to previous studies (Carneiro and C-logos and 20 A-logos), presented to each subject twice. Crompton, 2010; Prats et al., 2016). Specifically, the Chinese EEGs were recorded (band-pass 0.05–70 Hz, sampling rate subjects were asked; ‘‘Have you ever been to Africa?’’ The 500 Hz) with a NeuroScan SynAmps2 Amplifier (Scan 4.3.1, question required a binary response of Yes/No. If the answer was Neurosoft Labs, Inc., Sterling, VA, USA), using a 64-channel yes, then the follow-up question was ‘‘How long have you stayed electro-cap with Ag/AgCl electrodes, in mounted according in Africa?’’ The African subjects were asked the same questions to the extended International 10-20 system and referenced to about their visit to China. The result showed that all the Chinese linked mastoids. Vertical and horizontal electrooculograms were subjects had never been to Africa, while all the African subjects recorded with two pairs of electrodes, one placed above and were international students living in China for 16 months on below the right eye, and another 10 mm from the lateral canthi. average. The subjects were also given a cultural sensitivity scale The electrode impedance was maintained below 5 k during (Loo and Shiomi, 1999; Nguyen et al., 2008) for supplementary the experiment. analysis. The scale consists of five items Likert scaled (from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). Cronbach’s alpha Data Analysis of the five items was 0.74. The independent sample t-test of the EEG data were analyzed using the software NeuroScan version culture sensitivity scale revealed that the African subjects had 4.3.1. The EOG artifacts were initially corrected, followed by a higher mean score (3.8 ± 0.349) compared to the Chinese digital filtering through a zero-phase shift (low pass at 30 Hz, subjects (2.7 ± 0.358); t(38) = −9.828, p = 0.000. 24 dB/octave). The EEGs were segmented for 1,000 ms in each epoch, 200 ms before the onset of S1 and S2 until 800 ms after the onset, respectively. The baseline corrected using the Experimental Procedures and EEG 200 ms before the stimulus onset. Trials that contained amplifier Recording clippings, bursts of electromyography activity, or peak-to-peak Figure 1 indicates a single trial in the ERP experiment. The deflection that exceeded ±80 µV were excluded from the stimuli were presented using the E-prime 2.0 software package final average. (Psychology Software Tools, Pittsburgh, PA, USA). A fixation Based on visual inspection, the time window of P300 was appeared at the beginning of each trial for 500 ms on a gray chosen as 290–420 ms after the onset of the race picture screen. Next, a picture of Chinese or African people (S1) was (S1). Besides, P300 after the onset of S1 was observed presented for 1,000 ms. Then a gray blank screen was presented over the parietal-occipital site that was similar to prior randomly between 500 ms and 600 ms, and then, a picture of studies (Ito et al., 2004; Dickter and Bartholow, 2007). the logo (S2) was subsequently presented for 1,000 ms. The Thus, we selected the PO5, POZ, and PO6 for our subjects were told that people appearing in the S1 pictures analyses of P300. After the onset of the logo stimulus currently use and therefore recommend the earphones in S2 to (S2), the time window of 200–350 ms was chosen for N2.

FIGURE 1 | The event-related potential (ERP) experiment procedure. Participants saw a Chinese Asian picture, or an African Black picture at ﬁrst (S1), then a logo (S2). The subject is informed that the people in S1 purchased and positively recommended the logo in S2 to them. Their task was to rate logos using the mini keypad.

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Considering that previous studies of product preference (5.19 µV ± 2.93) t(19) = −2.953, P = 0.008, whereas no significant N2 components are generally distributed largely in the frontal difference in P300 elicited by the Asian Chinese race picture with and midfrontal regions (Telpaz et al., 2015), we therefore, that of the Black African race pictures was found in the African chose the electrodes F3, FZ, F4, FC3, FCZ, and FC4 for the subject group t(19) = 1.303, P = 0.208, Figure 2. analyses of N2. According to the results of the mixed ANOVA on N2 for To analyze the neural response of stimuli in S1, we conducted the logo stimuli (S2), as indicated by Figure 3, there was a a mixed-model ANOVA with Subject Groups (Chinese subjects significant main effect for the Subject Group (F(1,38) = 6.917, vs. African subjects) as a between-subject factor and Race Picture P = 0.012). While the main effect of the logo Picture was groups (Asian Chinese people vs. Black African people) as a not significant (F(1,38) = 1.451, P = 0.236). In addition, within-subject factor on P300. Whereas, to analyze the impact the ANOVA showed a significant interaction effect between effect of S1 on brand-logos stimuli in S2, we performed a the Subject Group and the Logo Pictures (F(1,38) = 9.445, mixed ANOVA with the Subject Group as the between-subjects P = 0.004). The simple effect analysis revealed that in factor and Logo groups (C-logos vs. A-logos) as the within- the Chinese subject group the N2 elicited by C-logos was subject factor on the N2 component. The brand-logos rating significantly higher (−2.895 µV ± 3.504) than that by A-logos score was analyzed using a mixed-model ANOVA with the (−4.0928 µV ± 3.372), t(19) = 2.854, P = 0.01, whereas in the Subject Group (Chinese subjects vs. African subjects) as the African subject group, no such significant difference was found between-subject factor and brand-logos Groups (C-logos vs. (t(19) = −1.411, P = 0.174). A-logos) as a within-subject factor. After the mixed ANOVA The Mixed-model ANOVA for logo rating (in the ERP for both behavior and neural data, the paired sample t-tests experiment) revealed no significant main effects for Subject were used to break down the interaction effects revealed in Groups (F(1,38) = 0.013, P = 0.909), moreover, there was those ANOVA analyses (Raz et al., 2013). All the data related no significant main effect for Logo Groups (F(1,38) = 2.041, to this study are provided in Supplementary Table S1. The P = 0.161). While there was a significant interaction effect Greenhouse-Geisser and Bonferroni corrections were applied of the Subject Group with Logo Groups (F(1,38) = 8.828, where appropriate. P = 0.005). To break down this interaction, a simple effect analysis showed that the C-logo rating scores in the Chinese subject group (3.016 ± 0.407) was significantly higher than RESULTS the A-logo rating scores (2.798 ± 0.356), t(19) = 2.515, P = 0.021, whereas in the African subjects group no significant For Race picture (S1) processing, the mixed-model ANOVA on differences were found between A-logo and C-logo rating scores, the P300 component revealed that there were significant main t( ) = −1.592, P = 0.128. This result is presented graphically effects for the Subject Groups (F = 4.714, P = 0.036) and 19 (1,38) in Figure 4. not for Race Pictures (F(1,38) = 2.911, P = 0.096). The interaction between the Race Picture and Subject Group was significant (F(1,38) = 10.076, P = 0.03). The paired sample analysis showed DISCUSSION that the mean amplitude of P300 elicited by the Asian Chinese race pictures in the Chinese subject group (3.6142 µV ± 2.072) The present study sets out to investigate the influence of was significantly lower than that of the Black African race picture consumer ethnocentrism on brand-logo preference using the

FIGURE 2 | Grand-averaged ERPs of P300 by Race Picture (S1) in the Chinese and African subject groups, respectively. The solid red line refers to Asian Chinese people pictured in S1 for the Chinese subject and the short-dash red line to Black African people pictured in S1 for Chinese subjects. The solid blue line refers to Asian Chinese people pictured in S1 for African subjects and the short-dash blue line to Black African people pictured in S1 for African subjects.

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FIGURE 3 | Grand-averaged ERPs of N2 elicited by logo stimuli. The solid red line refers to C-logo for Chinese subjects and the short-dash red line to the A-logo for Chinese subjects. The solid blue line refers to C-logos for African subjects, and the short-dash blue line to the A-logo for African subjects.

recommendation of the logos in S2 from Asian Chinese or Black African peoples in S1 were important determinants of their preferences but only in the Chinese subjects who had low familiarity with African culture, while the effect of the descriptive norm was not found in the African subjects who were familiar with Chinese culture because of their time spent living in China. The neural response showed that the race picture (S1) evoked a neural bias against the other race group as indicated by P300. The mixed ANOVA on P300 showed the significant interaction between Subject Group and Race Picture (S1), and the simple analysis revealed that the out-group race picture (i.e., the people in S1 were not of the same race as the subjects) elicited a more positive P300 than the in-group race picture in the Chinese subject group, but no such effect was found in the African subject group. Some previous studies have indicated that the P300 was correlated with other race effects (Ito et al., 2004; Dickter and Bartholow, 2007; He et al., 2009; Tanaka and Pierce, 2009). The P300 was associated with the encoding of familiar and unfamiliar faces during the interaction of facial expression FIGURE 4 | The means of A-logo and C-logo rating scores for the Black and familiarity processing (Wild-Wall et al., 2008). Therefore, African and Asian Chinese subjects. ∗Denotes a signiﬁcant difference between the A-logo and C-logo rating for Chinese subjects. the P300 in S1 could appear as a result of the encoding of the familiar and unfamiliar ethnic faces and clothes in the Race picture stimulus. Importantly, as previous literature revealed that ERP method. We recruited two subject groups, one consisting only in the higher prejudice group the LPP could be differentiated of Asian Chinese students and the other comprised of Black between the in-group and out-group faces (Ito et al., 2004). international students from sub-Saharan African countries Consistent with these findings, we found that the P300 at the living in China. The purchase behavior and the positive similar brain region could be distinguished between the race

Frontiers in Human Neuroscience| www.frontiersin.org 6 July 2019 | Volume 13 | Article 220 Ma et al. Neural Response to Consumer Ethnocentrism pictures only in the Chinese subjects. Larger P300 elicited by indicated the existence of consumer ethnocentrism driven by out-group race pictures indicated that Chinese subjects are less descriptive norms, while the neural reaction of African subjects familiar and have greater bias with African race than with their verified the reduction effect of race-culture familiarity on own race, which could also be supported by the self-reported consumer ethnocentrism. cultural familiarity and sensitivity. However, the P300 results The results of this study prove that consumer ethnocentrism from African subjects did not provide evidence about the racial could exist during the evaluation and selection of brands bias, which might be attributed to the long living time of African matched to ethnic groups as well as the origin of the subjects in China. product (local vs. imported), the in-group recommended The ERP component N2 elicited by C-logos was significantly logos were treated more favorably than the out-group smaller than that by A-logos among the Chinese subjects. A recommended logos in higher ethnocentrism groups previous study found that N2 was associated with purchase (Chinese subject). intention, and the products with low or no preference elicited One of the limitations of this study is that all the subjects were a more negative N2 amplitude than the high preferred young male students, future studies, therefore, need to investigate product (Telpaz et al., 2015). Accordingly, the effect of the neural response of the consumer ethnocentrism effect in descriptive norms on the brand preference was evident in both male and female subjects of a broader age range. What is Chinese subjects, i.e., the logos purchased and positively more, besides the culture-ethnic grouping basis, future work can recommended by Asian Chinese people were perceived investigate consumer ethnocentrism by recruiting subjects from more favorable than the logos purchased and positively different group categories the individual subjects feel a part of, recommended by Black African people. However, in the such as religion (Hornstein, 1972; Fershtman and Gneezy, 2001; Black African subjects, no significant difference in N2 was Platow and van Knippenberg, 2001; Levine et al., 2005; Stürmer found between the A-logo and C-logo, indicating that the et al., 2006; He et al., 2009; Rand et al., 2009). African subjects had a similar preference to logos purchased This study suggests several implications for locals in addition and recommended by Chinese people and African people. to international managers and marketers, whereby associating The rating scores for the A-logos and C-logos were in line products with a target consumer culture-ethnic group in with the N2 result. The influence of the Race Picture on the advertisements, or other marketing activities can benefit from the logo rating was obviously observed, especially for Chinese consumer ethnocentrism effect, leading to higher engagement subjects. Chinese subjects gave a higher rating score for with their own brands and products. the in-group recommended brand-logo (C-logo) than the out-group recommended brand-logo (A-logo), while the CONCLUSION African subjects showed no significant difference between the rating scores of the A-logo and C-logo. These results might The ERP experiment was conducted to explore the impact be attributed to the African subjects’ familiarity with both of cultural familiarity on the ethnic affiliation of consumer Chinese and African culture, which reduced the effect of ethnocentrism driven by descriptive norms. The experiment descriptive norms on brand preference. A previous multicultural consisted of two stimuli, Asian Chinese and Black African study which investigated the Chinese cultural adoption for recommenders in the S1 who purchased and recommended international students in China concluded that international headphone brand-logos in S2. The ERP component N2 was students adopted the Chinese culture over time (An and enhanced by the in-group recommended logo more than the Chiang, 2015). According to the cultural familiarity and out-group recommended logos in the Asian Chinese subjects. sensitivity measurements, the African subjects were familiar While no significant difference was found between the two with Chinese culture as well as with a higher degree of groups of brand-logos in the Black African subjects as a result cultural sensitivity, but the Chinese subjects were unfamiliar of cultural familiarity. This research achieves its general aim of with African culture and with a lower degree of cultural studying one of the important issues in international marketing, sensitivity. Although no previous studies investigated the by examining how consumer ethnocentrism studies can be relationship between the cultural familiarity and consumer beneficial in terms of using neuroscience tools such an ERP ethnocentrism directly, several studies found that tourist’s to supplement the traditional way of using scaled ranges of familiarity with the destination can positively affect their preferences and questionnaires. local product consumption and their satisfaction about the destination (Seo et al., 2013; Prats et al., 2016; Trianasari et al., 2018). Additionally, a negative relationship between consumer ETHICS STATEMENT ethnocentrism and cultural sensitivity was found in previous studies, i.e., consumers with a high cultural sensitivity are more The experiment was conducted at Neuro-management lab, positive and feel less threatened by the other culture-ethnic Zhejiang University. All subjects had normal or corrected groups, consequently, such consumers prefer imported products to normal vision with no history of neurological or more than consumers with a low cultural sensitivity (Wang, psychiatric abnormalities. This study was approved by the 2018). Our study verified the above results by applying the Neuromanagement Laboratory Ethics Committee at Zhejiang neuroscience method. Specifically, the neural response to the University. Written informed consent was obtained from all C-logos and A-logos (reflected by N2) of Chinese subjects participants before the ERP experiment.

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AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL

QM conceived the presented idea, verified the analytical methods The Supplementary Material for this article can be found and supervised the findings of this work. HA and LH carried out online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum. the experiment. HA wrote the manuscript with support from QM 2019.00220/full#supplementary-material and LH. All authors discussed the results and contributed to the final manuscript.

TABLE S1 | Comprise of seven datasets. (1) The age of the subject. (2) The FUNDING rating score of S1. (3) The rating score of S2 (the race stimulus, S1 was eliminated). (4) The cultural sensitivity scale score. (5) The mean amplitude of This work was supported by grant 09JZD0006 from the Ministry P300 elicited by S1. (6) The mean amplitude of N2 elicited by S2. (7) The rating of Education of China. score of S2 (with S1 in the ERP experiment).

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